How often do you charge your Plug-in Prius?

I wonder, how many people use the Plug-in Prius mostly as a hybrid with only occasional EV type use? I have read a few reviews that say the plugging in gets to be a chore for them. In my case I could see that becoming a hassle in the winter, as I don't have a functional garage. (It was converted into a home theatre by the previous owner.)

How often do you charge your PiP?

My workplace is 15 km away which is perfect for the PiP's range, so ideally I'd charge twice per day, once at home and once at work. On the snowy cold winter days, I'd actually be more inclined to do it just once a day at work (since the parking garage is covered), assuming it is OK with them and I can get a parking spot next to an outlet. And if I can't find that charging spot at work I could see myself going a few days without charging if it is a particularly nasty spell weather wise, assuming that doesn't damage the battery system.

 

I'm in CA as in Canada, not California. For my 2012 Prius Plug-in Wikipedia says they sold 63 of them in all of Canada. I guess mine is #64. (Actually, I do not know how they count the model year sales. I just bought a 2012 dealer demo, in 2015.)

The HOV lane benefit is ending here in Ontario this year. It was a nice bonus, but truthfully it's not a huge deal to me, since most of my driving is in the city. The few HOV lanes in the city don't qualify for this. It's just the HOV lanes on the big highways that I'm rarely on.

BTW, the reason I bought it was because of the trim package, it had reasonable mileage, and it was physically on the lot and available. The Plug-in was just a nice bonus. I paid a premium for it, but not as much as it would have been otherwise. I approached the negotiation as if I was buying a regular used Prius with the Technology Package, and tacked a little bit more money on top of that to compensate for the Plug-in part.

 

Do you have another car? We have two, so we could work with a pure EV plus second car, but we couldn't have just one pure EV alone. There are several places we go where 70 miles would not be enough. In fact, even just going to the airport and back, with a few errands and a meal in between would give me range anxiety. 70 miles is 112.6 km, and the airport is 40 km away.

BTW, I just confirmed with my workplace that they're OK if I plug my car in in the parking garage, as long as I choose a spot next to an outlet so that the cabling doesn't get in the way of traffic or other parking spots. No dedicated EV parking spots though, so it's first come first serve. Actually, it turns out they're considering installing EV chargers in the future, albeit not in my particular garage. Luckily though, with our Priuses, we don't need dedicated chargers and the charge time on 120 V is short.

 

Yeah, I think summer will be fine (unless a big rainstorm or something). It's the winter I'm more worried about, not necessarily from the perspective of the cable lasting, but more for the hassle factor, like bisco's having to dig out the outlet, etc.

 

My car has over 29000 km, with the EV usage screen showing ~250 km EV and ~24000 km HV.

I don't know where the other 5000 km went, but does this mean the dealer essentially just never charged the car?

Yeah, I need to RTFM, but I don't have it with me right now.

 

I wonder what that non-charging does to the battery, if anything. The battery seems fine though. I got the 17.5 km EV range it claimed this morning. I did over 18 km I believe, but that was with the HV coming briefly a couple of times.

This car really requires one to RTFM. So far I haven't figured out how to switch between ratio 1 and 2, and I also have activated the hill start assist accidentally a couple of times. The first time it happened it freaked me out since I though the car had gone into some error mode.

 

Made it home today with a bit juice to spare. Charged up at work and it said 17.3 km available. Commute was measured at 16.5 km, with 1.5 km left.

I guess I fit the Toyota commuter demographic perfectly, with a 10 mile commute.

BTW, it took 32 mins. Average 25 km/hr. That's what you get for all in-the-city driving in a big congested city.

 

Got the real numbers from the other ratio screen.

Including my one day of driving (with one charge) and all of their previous driving, it was 28479 km HV mode and 730 km EV. So yeah, they almost never bothered to charge the Prius.

Given my 16-17 km commute distance, I could do that 730 km EV distance in a single month, assuming I had access to charging every day at work for the trip home.

 

Yep. The fob comes with the AC option. In fact, both fobs they included have that AC option. Nice.

This is WAY better than the AC option on the non-Plug-in Priuses. However, it's unfortunate you can't pre-warm the car when it's plugged in. That missing electric heater would be perfect for this purpose.

 

It looks like on average I personally will be charging ~10X per week, so up to a couple times a day with the workplace charging.

Bought an extra 12 AWG extension cord. In my parking lot the outlets are on the pillars facing the lanes, but only one side. If you get the parking spot right next to the pillar then great, but if you get the second parking spot in front of that, then the 22 foot Toyota cable is just a tad short. You can make it work by encroaching into the first spot, but that's not good etiquette.

For example, this image I downloaded illustrates this problem.



My parking lot isn't angled, but otherwise the picture is representative. Let's say the parking space adjacent to the outlet is on the pillar beside the yellow/beige car in the left bunch of parking spots. (The outlet is just above it in that picture.) The actual outlet is on the outermost wall of the pillar, adjacent to the roadway, which would be facing that down arrowhead in the picture.

If that yellow spot is taken, there are two spots on the left side I can park in and still have access to the plug without running the cable across any parking spots. Those two spots are the one the pink car is in, on the left, or else the parking spot right above the pink car (below the light blue car). (There is no parking spot above the yellow car, because in my parking lot that would be a stairwell.) If I back into the pink car spot, and park right at the edge, touching the yellow car's spot, then I can use the Toyota cable, as it is just barely long enough. However, if I park in the parking spot just above that pink car, then because of the orientation of the car, I can't charge it. Need an extension.

First world problem, I know, but easily solved by just keeping a 25' 12 AWG cable in the car.